North for nothing. Forget about overseas.”
“They wouldn’t take us, anyway,” Augustus says.
“Why not?” I ask.
He pulls up his sleeve and rubs his arm.
“What’s that?”
“Skin tone.”
“You’re black, right?” Breffni asks.
“What do you think?” I feel the answer’s obvious, even though I still can’t figure out whether to capitalize black or put it in quotations.
“You’re light-skinned,” Augustus says. “Who knows? Maybe they’ll like you.”
“Like I said,” Crispen says, smiling. “Fresh meat. How old are you?”
“Twenty-one. You?”
“Twenty-four.”
“You?” I ask Breffni.
“Twenty-four.”
“How old are you?” I ask Augustus.
“Older than you.”
“Seriously. How old?”
“Seriously old.”
I turn to the others. “How old is he?”
Crispen and Breffni exchange glances. “We don’t know,” they both say.
“How do you not know?”
“He never tells us,” Crispen says.
“Put it this way,” Augustus adds. “I was doing shoots in New York while you were watching Hammy Hamster.”
“If you modelled in New York, what are you doing here?”
“Well,” he says slowly, “too many models in New York. I read somewhere that there are more models in the Big Apple than people in Jackson, Wyoming. And there’s less competition here. No offence.”
“No offence?” Breffni says. “Tell him what kind of modelling you were doing in New York.”
“Never mind that, Pappa. Money’s money.”
Breffni grins gleefully. “Biggs was a hand model.”
I did some hand modelling once in an internal video for the Department of National Defence. They had to shoot eighteen takes because I had trouble opening the envelope. The client blamed me. I blame extra-strength tamperproof glue. Hand modelling, like pretty much everything in life, is harder than it seems. I crane my head to study Augustus’s hands, but they’re now in the pockets of his sweater.
“Don’t blame me if people want to pay me serious cash to wear shiny things on my hands. And I’m doing more real modelling now, anyway. Hand modelling’s just for the money. So are we out or what?” Augustus asks, standing.
I peer at my watch. Somehow it’s already past 11:00. “I think I’ll have to pass. I’d better get some sleep if we have to be there for 9:15 tomorrow.”
“Forget it,” Crispen says. “You’ll have plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead.”
“Yeah, but if I don’t sleep, I’ll be dead that much sooner.”
They’re all looking at me. Didn’t Rianne say something about the Garage?
“Well, if I go, I have to eat first. I’m starving.”
“Me, too,” Augustus agrees. “Starvin’ like Marvin. Let’s get some pizza.”
“Pepperoni, Italian sausage,” Crispen insists.
“Make it half and half,” Breffni says. “Tomato, onion, and zucchini for me.”
“Your pizza’s getting nastier every time we order, Breff,” Crispen says, wrinkling his nose. “Next week it’ll be corn, squash, and rice. I don’t know how you live on plants and still have any meat on your bones.” Breffni is shorter and thinner than the others, but cut like a diamond.
“Protein’s in the beans!” Breffni sluices the last of the goop from the bowl into his mouth.
Augustus, holding one end of the receiver, asks, “Do we want free pesto?”
“Throw a shirt on, Breff,” Crispen says.
“I can’t dress until I hear some tunes,” Breffni says. “Let’s hear some tunes.” He turns to me. I notice one of his nipples is pierced. “C.J.’s a kick-ass DJ. He used to DJ in the States.”
“Back in North Carolina,” Crispen says. “I got everything from Method Man to Mozart, man.”
The house bops to some old Cameo while we dress. I root through my suitcase for my dancing gear, chip a nail on my camera at the bottom. An old Canon, not the best, but good enough to win last year’s Nepean Public Library Photo Competition, Amateurs Under Forty. I pull it out. “Will this be safe in this apartment?”
“Safer than if you left it out in the hall, but that’s about it,” Crispen says.
I stuff it back into the bottom of my suitcase. The little gold travel lock’s just enough to delay a would-be thief by the length of a chuckle.
Breffni’s still primping long after the three of us are done. We finish off another joint and the pizza while we wait. Both taste like tapestry. For some reason it doesn’t seem the least bit strange to be sharing stories and spliffs in a strange city with three strange guys. I suppose I haven’t lived long enough for anything to be truly surprising. I wonder if one can go into shock from the experience of moving. If the phrase comfortably numb wasn’t sung about decades earlier, now would be a good time to dream it up.
“Hurry up, Breff!” Crispen shouts. “When he’s doing a show, he can change from a sweater to a tux in less than twenty seconds. But when we want to jet, it takes him an hour. Go figure.”
Breffni yells from the bathroom, “Big difference between modelling and real life, right?”
“Just hurry the hell up.”
The men’s washroom at the Garage is surprisingly similar to the rest of the club. Cold concrete underfoot, hot neon overhead, and tools as far as the eye can see. My stepfather, were he alive, would be prying pliers and spanners off the wall. Even in here there’s no refuge from the black light. Constellations of lint glow on my black turtleneck. On the sleeves, long electric filaments from cats long dead. I’m afraid it may appear to be dandruff. Right now I’d trade my shoes for a lint brush.
The taps are operated by unmarked wrenches. I’d like to splash some cold water on my face, but I can’t figure out the taps. I puke in the sink instead. Pieces of salami sluice down the drain. I’m tempted to blame the pesto, but I know better. My eyes are infernally red. Then I squawk with dry heaves. I feel as if my soul is passing out of my mouth. There’s a young, smartly dressed man standing politely next to me. I try to ask him what pesto is, but it comes out more like “Why I’m pissed.” He offers me a towel. I’m not sure if it’s pity or his job that motivates him. I compromise by accepting it and giving him a quarter. His expression says that was clearly the wrong move, though whether it’s because I gave him money or because I gave him so little, I can’t tell.
I check myself into a stall for a half-time pep talk. My game plan is clearly not working. Focus is the key. A comeback, not entirely impossible. Crispen and Breffni are hunting a school of young models. On the dance floor they circle closer and closer like reef sharks. Breffni’s after a tall brunette with a fake tan and mechanical breasts. She seems familiar, but they always do. I’ve had plenty of girls like her, all forgotten. Crispen, tonight’s designated pilot fish, will be happy with the leftovers.
I’m still looking for Rianne. I think I saw